How to Play a Text Adventure, Part 2

If you've not read the first article in
this series, you'll be hopelessly lost, since I'm diving straight
back into our game of Glowgrass which is already in
progress.

Okay, when we last stopped, we had just reached the Lawn. Let's
load our saved game.

>restore
"example.sav"
Restored.

Lawn
You're standing in a square area of neatly trimmed green lawn,
shimmering faintly in the afternoon light. To the west, the lawn
gives way to courtyard, and beyond it to the west and north are
buildings. An odd, paved rectangular depression in the ground leads
down to the southeast; the encroaching jungle vegetation further back
is kept at bay by a barrier of translucent sheeting.

Something about the scene gives you a sudden tingle of recognition,
a surge of awe. As if you're walking into a legend.

Now we're back to where we left off. We can give that sheeting
a closer look.

>x
sheeting
The barrier is a thin, translucent film, resembling modern polycarbon
alloys. Possibly an early form of monomolecular diamond; if so, it
confirms some of your theories about the development of Ancient
materials handling. It stands nearly three metres high, forming a
protective wall across the entire south and east edges of the lawn
area.

I guess we won't be going south or east. Nothing else here looks
that interesting, so let's keep going.

>se
Pool
You're standing in a concrete rectangle set into the ground, paved
with a grey substance, probably stressed concrete. It's recognisable
as a swimming pool, a popular Ancient recreation fixture. Whatever
water was once here has long since drained away, probably through the
outlet grate set centrally in the pool's floor.

You see a bright orange object here.

Ooh, an object to play with! And there's a grate in the pool which
might be important. But first, let's find out about that orange
object.

>x
object
It's a bright orange polymer casting, moulded in the shape of a spiral
disk. A tiny legend on the now faded material reads, in the Ancient
language, FRISBEE (tm) HELIPTA.

Our character may not know what this is, but we do! And I know one
thing Frisbees are good for.

>get
frisbee
Taken.

>throw it
The Frisbee Helipta spins furiously as it leaves your hand, hovers
briefly before shooting straight up into the air, then glides in a
graceful spiral back into your hand. Reminds you of a a modern
dropship in flight.

Notice that I referred to the Frisbee as IT. IT
refers automatically to the last thing you did anything with. It's
pretty useful shorthand.

So I've got a Frisbee I can throw around. I think I know how this
will come in handy. But before I do anything with it, I'll take a look
at that grate.

>x grat
I don't know the word "grat".

>oops grate
In the outlet grate you see a set of cards.

If you're like me, you'll make a number of typing mistakes. The
OOPS command is good for fixing one misspelled word. Above I
mistyped "grate" as "grat", and the game complained. OOPS
tells the game, "Replace the word you didn't understand with this
word." So OOPS GRATE told the game to replace "grat" with
"grate" in my command and try again. OOPS has its limits,
since you can only replace one word, and the game can't have
understood the word you mistyped.

What if you make a mistake that can't be fixed by OOPS?
If, for instance, you accidentally burn the map that would lead you to
the treasure? UNDO undoes the last turn, letting you back up
one step in time.